The majority of secondary schools will be forced to become academies to avoid becoming the “dumping ground for the problems of other schools”, a Bradford teacher has warned.

Speaking at the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) annual conference in Liverpool, Stuart Herdson, the union’s Bradford branch secretary, said there were two reasons why every school would convert into an academy: funding issues and to avoid being left behind by other schools.

Academies are semi-independent state schools which receive funding directly, rather than through their local authority.

While the academies programme was originally set up under Labour to boost standards in poor areas, the coalition Government is now allowing every school to apply for the status.

At the ATL’s conference delegates debated a motion rejecting the coalition’s policy and confirming support for members opposed to their school becoming an academy to take action, including balloting for industrial action. The union has traditionally opposed the introduction of academies.

Seconding the motion, Mr Herdson said: “We are now at the stage where we will have to face that it is inevitable that the majority of secondary schools will have to become academies.”